Entries by Leann

Hey Andrea, we hope your day is very special and that you do everything you want to do!! Happy Birthday!!!

Today was our last full day in Prague so we made it worth our while, hehe. We got up early and had breakfast and then headed over to the Old Jewish cemetery where we waited a bit till it opened at 9 am. We were the first in line! lol. It’s a good thing we got there early so we could take pictures, of course. It’s just easier and the atmosphere is better. I bet this would be a cool graveyard to go into at night but that’s not for us hehe. It was cool because there are over 100,000 bodies buried there in piles. Next to the walkways there was just big piles of dirt, haha. I kept wondering if bones would wash up after a good rainstorm. Sorry, I guess my gruesome side is showing. It was also very beautiful in a melancholy sort of way.

After the graveyard there were more sites to see on our ticket. We went to several synagogues telling the history of the Czech Jews. All the way from their religious traditions, being exiled several times, and then on to after World War II. I read pretty much all I could. Dad would probably like it, hehe. There was one synagogue where we wished we could take pictures because the inside was really pretty. But they didn’t like that so we didn’t take pictures there.

We walked around pretty much all morning. Then we were hungry so we headed to the end of the line for some lunch. It was good but the yellowjackets (wasps) were annoying buzzing around our drinks and food. I had some more goulash. I do like the goulash at least. After that we headed over to another shopping center where we couldn’t buy anything, hehe. I guess somehow these shopping centers survive for now but we never see many people inside the actual shops. We were pretty tired by this time so we headed back to the hotel and rested a bit and Mickel sorted through pictures. By around 7 pm we dressed up fancy and went out for dinner. I was doubting whether this restaurant would be good or not since it’s so out of the way from downtown. It’s in a hotel but it is indeed fine dining! First we had some soup then we both had steaks that were to die for!! It came with roasted potatoes and spinach all piled up like they do in fine dining. The wine I had with my dinner was also very good. Then we had some dessert that was also to die for! lol. I had strawberry fritters with some chocolate sauce and ice cream. Mmm. We had some cappuccino with our desserts as well. So this was our anniversary meal/last evening meal hehe. It was quite good. You can see pictures of the food, Mickel and the graveyard here. I keep forgetting to mention them but the escalators here are quite scary! My parents probably remember me being a little skiddish of escalators as a child anyway. You can see in the first picture the longest escalator in the EU. Apparently there is one even worse in Russia which is where these high escalators come from I guess! lol. Also, some of them go really fast. Well anyway, I’m sort of getting used to them hehe. Have fun looking at the pictures.

For dinner yesterday I just happened to find that there is a Korean restaurant close by to our hotel. Well we had to go there! It was very yummy. We had some bulgogi and pork belly barbecue with side dishes. The kimchi was especially delicious. I also think it helped me get over my cold more quickly (I’m feeling better today). So that was a nice experience for my first Korean restaurant. I just wish we got a bit more food for the price we paid.

Today we also took it pretty easy. We were thinking of going to the Jewish quarters today but it was too busy by the time we got there. We might go there tomorrow but I’m not sure yet. Then we looked around the area a bit more and Mickel took pictures. Then we wanted to see more of the communist Prague you could say, hehe. We headed to a restaurant for lunch in the outskirts where the food was very cheap and quick. Kind of like fast food only much healthier, hehe. Everyone was crowded into a little cellar and they came in an out within 30 minutes. So people eat there during their lunch breaks. I had some yummy chicken soup with bread and Mickel had the goulash with dumplings. That was interesting. Then we looked around the area a bit more by going by bus around the outskirts of Prague. There are lots of block building apartments. They used to be just gray but nowadays they’ve gotten creative and have anywhere from just pretty colors to designs on the buildings. I guess you have to do something to make them look more interesting.

We got off the bus and Mickel took pictures of that surrounding area. It was just interesting because there is Czech stores and bakery’s unlike dowtown Prague where all the western stores have taken over. We both wanted to see something different from the usual. I’d like to buy some Czech crystal here but I’m not sure where to buy any. I guess I’ll have to pay a lot in the tourist areas if I want any. Then we had a bit of ice cream in that area. It was very yummy. After that we headed back to the hotel. We like to rest in the afternoons before dinner usually.

For dinner we headed to a Czech restaurant that was yummy. We had the fried bread with chili sauce and cheese on top and Mickel had like a meat platter for the main course and I had a cheese stuffed chicken breast. The sauce was made from some local cheese. I loved it. After having those two big plates we were too full for any desert. So we headed back to the hotel and are just resting for the evening. The pictures from today you can find here. Enjoy!

Today we both got up pretty early and had breakfast. We always like getting up early when we travel. The breakfast buffet was very delicious! We’ll enjoy eating that everyday I believe, hehe. Then we headed over to the Old Town and too Charles Bridge. There are many statues on Charles Bridge and also many legends. You can read all about that here. It was quite beautiful there and I had fun looking at all of the views. Mickel of course went crazy with the pictures, lol. Then we headed over to old town square and took more pictures. We watched the clock by Old Town where everyone seemed to think it’s so cool (in all of the videos). I guess I had high expectations because all it does is you see some saints and a guy plays the trumpet. hehe. Oh well. I guess I thought they would sing and dance or something. We took a break at Starbucks after that and then headed over to an old bohemian market. It was quite cool. I wanted to buy some things there and I still might, just not sure yet. We were done around noon and were very hot and tired by this time. So we decided to go to the hotel and rest a bit. Unfortunately the maids hadn’t been in yet. I guess they come later here. We’ll do that differently tomorrow.

After we rested a bit, we decided to do a bit of shopping in the shopping centers. We visited two of them, and were surprised to see that the prices are pretty much the same as in Holland. We’re not sure how the locals can afford to shop at places like this since their salaries aren’t very high. We went to one in the middle of Prague and then headed to one at the end of the metro tracks, hehe. It took about 25 minutes to get there but it’s pretty much a suburb of Prague. Mickel says it used to be much different than it is now. There used to be sad, gray looking apartment building there but now there is an Ikea and a huge shopping center. I seriously felt like I was magically transported to America! We don’t have pictures but trust me, it looked just like an American mall. Lol. They had a huge supermarket/Walmart type store that we went into and I bought a washcloth. I guess they don’t provide washcloths in the hotel which is strange but ok. So I suppose the Czech want to forget their sad past and move too capitalism? Lol. I don’t know. By the time we were done with that, I was absolutely pooped. We didn’t eat lunch either so my blood sugar was pretty low, hehe. We had some ice cream and then headed back to the hotel.

We planned on eating at a restaurant just across the street but it’s closed for technical reasons. I guess so. It seems a lot of stores and restaurants are closed at the moment. I’m not sure why that is. Mickel seems to think it’s normal though. But we found another Czech restaurant close to the hotel. The food was ok. Everything was good except my meat because it was dry and had no sauce. Not much flavoring either. I had Czech mashed potatoes which have bacon and cheese in it. You can’t go wrong with that combination! I also had some chicken wings and ice cream with warm raspberry sauce for desert. Mmm that was good!

Then we headed back to the hotel and are resting. There was just a big storm that came through so hopefully it will be cooler tomorrow. They say it will be. You can see all of the pictures from today here. Enjoy!

Today we headed to Gelderland Plein in Amsterdam to go to the Korean store there. The store is in a shopping center so we usually look around first. I always like to go into this cooking store to see what’s there. It’s usually too expensive to buy anything but I guess Mickel had other ideas haha. We needed some new cooking pans so he bought me a nice quality non-stick pan and then a new wok too! He also bought a spatula and some cloths that won’t scratch the pans when you pile them up together. The wok came with a recipe book and a cd. Ooh fancy! So that was a nice out of the blue surprise. Then we headed to the store and bought some spicy red sauce, red pepper flakes, some panko flakes and more hehe. We bought some meat for tonight and Diana is coming over. So a little Korean bbq will take place. The rest of the day we just lazed around and such. I’m supposed to go see the Twilight movie tonight as well with Diana and her friend. So that should be fun too.

Diana and I have matching dresses now (lol) that we saw online. It’s a cherry/retro kind of dress. I really like it. I probably won’t wear it too often since it’s not that easy to wash but it will be nice to take to parties and such. You can see it under the pictures here. Diana needs to do a bit of adjusting on hers. Maybe we can take a picture of us wearing the dresses sometime. We bought the dresses online at Torrid here if interested.

Also, Happy 4th of July! I wish I could see the fireworks since it’s been awhile. Maybe someday we can go during the 4th, we’ll see. Take care!

My week has gone well. On Memorial Day we went to my Great Aunt Elsie’s graveyard to put flowers there. We also planned on having a picnic at a church nearby but there was a funeral going on. Since that would be disrespectful, we decided to go to a nearby Edgar Evins State park next to Center Hill lake. It was pretty nice there. I took some nice pictures which you’ll see when I get back. Nothing too much happened the rest of the week.

I’ve been having fun but no tales to tell and such hehe. This week we’ve been figuring out when to go see Mema and the rest of the family. Aunt Rita invited us down to her place in Atlanta so we’re leaving to go there tomorrow. While I’m there I’ll be going to see my favorite K-pop group the Wonder Girls hehe. You can read more about them here if interested. Another one of my favorite groups will be there from the same company called 2pm. In any case, I’ll be in fangirl heaven hehe. I just don’t know anyone else who likes them but I don’t care. I’m old enough now where it doesn’t bother me to go alone if I enjoy something enough. I’ll be taking my laptop so I’ll most likely be online.

Well I’m doing good here. This week has been pretty restful. Scott’s last day of school was yesterday so he’s happy. On Tuesday Mom and I went over to Henry Horton State park and looked around. Then on the way back we went to a nice vineyard and looked around and had a little wine tasting. That was fun and of course we brought some wine home. It’s all gone by now tehee. We can’t really buy wine at Walmart or a grocery store since Tennessee is weird about alcohol. So we have to go too a liquor store just to buy wine! lol. It’s seems like we’re hard core drinkers or something! Anyway, that’s the only thing I have to rant about Nashville. It’s a pretty cool city and all. I think I must be a city girl at heart! Then on Wednesday, we didn’t do too much. I’ve been going to the pool alot. I’m not sure if I’m getting much of a sun tan though. I don’t usually get very brown anyway. sigh But at least I don’t look like a ghost anymore lol. For dinner on Wednesday, me, mom and dad went to a Chinese buffet. The buffet was large with anything you could want with Chinese. Mmm. And it was cool because there was a fish pond inside! I took pictures of it all but for some reason the card reader isn’t working. I think I might have broken it because one of the little pins is bent. I’m not sure how that happened though. Hopefully I’ll get that fixed soon.

Yesterday, we celebrated Scott’s last day of school by going to the movies. We went to see Alice and Wonderland in a cheaper theater that plays older movies. The ticket prices were really nice, only $1.50 a ticket but the popcorn was expensive! I had to have the yummy movie theater popcorn though, haha. The movie was ok I guess. Nothing very spectacular so I’m glad I didn’t pay a full price for it. That theater also has Avatar playing hehe. I might go see it again though it’s not in 3d. And today I’ve done nothing much at all except go to the pool again. Then I heard thunder in the distance so I left before I wanted too but the storm didn’t hit here. Grr. This weekend we’ll have scattered thunderstorms unfortunately. We’ll probably be going out somewhere for Memorial day. I’ll keep you posted.

I’m still doing good here but I am sad about Oma Ria. She was one of the nicest people too me. She was just a warm, caring person. I had a drink yesterday, to honor her.

My days are fun here. Yesterday, we did do a bit of shopping at one of the malls nearby. We also got some lunch at the Olive Garden. It was very yummy of course! I’m sure I’ll be going back there again and maybe some Red Lobster too to make Mickel jealous, hehe. Olive Garden and Red Lobster are our favorite restaurants here in the States. Then last night, I bought some Starbucks and we headed out to look for deer (a favorite family activity hehe) and headed to Walmart. Today it’s kind of a quiet day though I did go to the pool for a bit. I couldn’t stay out for too long or I would burn up hehe. The sunblock we had wasn’t strong enough for me anyway so we’ll have to buy some soon. It’s nice and warm though, perfect for swimming. Of course there were others at the pool too. Tonight, we’ll be grilling steaks outside. Mmm steak! I’m hungry already, can we eat soon? haha. I have uploaded some more pictures under the Nashville photos. You can see them starting at clubhouse. Enjoy!

I’ve been making the past few days since I’ve gotten here. I’ll probably update this link every other day or so. You can see them here. Today Mom and I bought some books and looked around this shopping mall type center. It was nice there. Then we had some lunch at Steak and Shake. I had a yummy milkshake. Then we headed back home and had a restful afternoon. This evening Scott had an awards ceremony from his school. He won an award for academic achievement in Social Studies. He really loves Geography and he gets good grades in that class. You can see from the pictures that my baby brother is not a baby anymore haha. I think he must be 6 feet tall now since I’m 5 feet 7 inches (160 cm). Now I’m very sleepy from still being a little jet-lagged. Take care!

Yesterday was kind of a relaxing day. We went out to the park and saw some animals. Then we headed over to Walmart and got some groceries. I’m sure I’ll be heading there some more throughout my trip hehe. We also got some krispy kreme donuts which were delicious! I’d forgotten how good they were since it’s been so long. Then we headed home and I talked to Mickel for a bit online. It seems we can you yahoo voice so that will save on telephone bills. Then I wanted some pizza so I ordered it hehe. It was good. I’m still full the next day from eating it. I’m probably going to gain a couple of pounds (more like ten!) while I’m here. I also uploaded some of my parents pictures. They took them during the spring and also after the May 1st flooding in Nashville. You can see how the Opryland Hotel got severely flooded and you can see the results here. And the pictures show the aftermath of all the flooded. You can see the pictures here. I’ll be uploading my own pictures later.

Hi everyone, I made it to Nashville ok. The flight from Amsterdam to Newark was kind of scary though. There was a lot of turbulence before landing and I got really nervous. The landing was rough but I was glad to be alive! lol. I also didn’t like the plane because it was so small for an 8 hour trip. There were only two rows of 3 seats. Talk about cramped! OMG, I was so glad to get out of there haha. Newark airport is ok but it’s a bit old and rundown. The plane to Nashville was delayed a bit because of strong head winds but I got here ok.

Then I got to the apartment and we had some late night dinner and I went to bed right afterwards. Now I’m awake and running at 6:45 am waiting for the rest of the family to wake up hehe. I’m updating from the computer because I can’t get the internet to connect automatically. Maybe I’ll figure it out later or call Mickel.

So my family is happy to see me, along with my kitty Puff haha. She was sleeping next to me most of the night and follows me to the bathroom. I guess she missed me! Aww! Now I’m hungry for breakfast hehe. If Mickel were here, we would probably be going to Cracker Barrel super early because of jet lag. Well that’s about it for now, I’ll keep you posted.

I am flying over the Atlantic and I remembered that I have not posted this video yet, so … here you are! The latest cooking video that I made.

Here we have to ‘cake’ type videos hehe. Stupid youtube is saying I might have copyrighted material on my potato cake video. But I know I don’t because I only get my music from freeplay.com. I hate youtube sometimes.

Also, with the potato cakes video, we tried to use the green screen, but that didn’t work too well. It’s way too difficult with my videos. In other news, we’ll be going to a barbecue for a birthday/housewarming party for Tristan and Kelly. They just moved into their new house and they have everything fixed up now. It should be fun.

Yesterday we headed to Amsterdam to experience the ‘real’ Queen’s day according to many people hehe. We headed there a bit early though. We left on the 9 am train and there wasn’t much going on yet. There were a lot of booths and markets everywhere though. They had a carnival where the Dam is with a huge ferris wheel and other scary looking rides haha. We saw lots of people partying on boats though. But since we got there early, Mickel got too tired before the day really started. So he left and went home and me and Diana stayed and partied! hehe. But since he didn’t stay we don’t have as many pictures but we have them here. Diana and I walked everywhere and saw a lot. We danced a bit too to the various dancing stages. Then we headed to the Museum plein which probably wasn’t that great of an idea considering we couldn’t actually get into that crowd to see anything! We needed like a huge guy with us or something lol. Now I’m a fairly tall person, but Dutchies are seriously tall! I felt short a few times during the day and since Diana is shorter, I guess she felt short all day hehe. We had to come back through massive crowds from the Museum Plein so that was fun. Mickel says there were 750,000 extra people there for Queen’s Day. But that was the biggest problems we had with crowds. I think people here exaggerate too much on how crowded it can get. We wanted to go to Subway for dinner but it was too crowded for that. So we decided to head on home after getting some Starbucks first. Unfortunately, the train never came in. We waited around an hour before taking the bus back to Hoorn. Apparently, some assholes decided to pull the emergency breaks on the trains. So of course, the trains weren’t coming as often. This only happens between Amsterdam and Zaandam so someone from North Holland is doing this. Mickel also had to go home by bus because of the same problem. Anyway, we did get back after a busy day! Today my feet hurt with blisters on them but it was worth it hehe.